naive

To any big oil industry trader or executive, the current calls for alternative energy seem overly naive. To propose that we tackle our current energy needs with solar or wind power must sound as credulous as young children offering their parents advice on how to solve key problems.

For once though the real naiveness is not in thinking that we can do without oil. Because surely for as long as we persist in our current way of living we cannot and we never will. The naiveness is in thinking that we can keep going the way we are going. That we can keep building houses in the desert and then use energy to keep them from becoming ovens. That we can all drive oversized SUVs wherever and whenever we please. That we can fly around the planet. That we can all lie in front of our flat screen TVs munching chips. That we can all have a lawn. That we can all drink bottled water that has been shipped half way around the globe. That we all need fresh fruit and vegetables in the middle of winter. That the party will never end.

However, not all is lost. Because, however good you think this party feels, it really is not. People are far from happy. There is more depression, more mental illness, and more chronic disease now than at any time in human history. More people are overweight and suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure than at any time in history. These modern ills are so prevalent and so serious that some have argued that all the gains we made against infectious diseases are nullified by the losses we suffer to diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and the like. I.e. it is not obvious that we are better off than our ancestors several centuries ago. It may appear that way, but then again we may be overly naive.

Our party is not satisfying in any real sense. It is driven by constant activity, constant buying, and other obsessive-compulsive behaviors that make people forget their unhappiness and that some would say, are symptoms of a deep underlying unhappiness. Humans are not well suited to a sedentary life-style. They are not adapted to eating sugar and sweets all day long. Even though we are curious and like to see new things, we do not travel as well as we would like. We suffer from jet lag, travelers diarrhea and other ills. Traveling spreads infectious diseases and will play a major role in the coming and all but inevitable pandemic.

So, you wonder, why do we do all this stuff if it does not really satisfy us? One key reason is the constant barrage of advertising targeting our most basic needs and instincts. We are constantly told that we are inadequate unless we drink coke, budweiser, or unless we buy dove soap, or apply degree deodorant. We need to brush, floss, and gargle listerine. We are told we need to travel and visit faraway places. We are urged to buy larger and heavier cars. We are frightened into swallowing vitamins and supplements, and drink calcium fortified orange juice. We are bombarded with thousands of ads by the time we turn ten.

This flood of advertising is so overwhelming and so difficult to get away from that it is constantly driving our day. Americans watch more commercials than any other people in the world, and they spend more time shopping than any other people. All that shopping amounts to very little as research has shown that we discard or thrash over 90% of what we buy within six months. Nothing has any lasting value in this system of constant and senseless turnover. We have become huge churning machines, taking in goods and energy, and spitting out waste and pollution.

It is indeed very naive to think that we can keep going like this forever. That it is our patriotic duty to consume. The fact that nobody objects to such a depiction of patriotism shows how deeply affected we are by advertising and how warped our sense of the world has become. How can destruction of our land and wasting our resources be called patriotic? It is time to wake up America. Wake up before it is too late.